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Bribery Arrests Deliver Blow
To Germany's Social Democrats

By

William Boston Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated June 14, 2002 11:59 p.m. ET

BERLIN -- In a blow to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats just months before national elections, Cologne police Thursday arrested two party officials and a local businessman on suspected bribery charges.

The arrests of former Cologne Mayor Norbert Ruether; Karl Wienand, a former member of the federal parliament; and Hellmut Trienekens, who operates waste-disposal facilities, comes some three months after it emerged...